field trip

Yesterday I went on a field trip with Lucas's class.

He informed me that I hadn't chaperoned a field trip since he was in kindergarten! (when I was pregnant with Eva) Since he's now in fourth grade, I agreed that it was definitely time to volunteer. Fortunately my support team stepped in to help: Heidi took Eva in the morning and dropped her off at preschool and Jill picked her up, fed her lunch, and played with her until I returned at 2:30.

We left the school at 9:15.

I had forgotten how truly chaotic it is to ride a school bus filled with excited kids!

First we went to downtown Provo for GIS Day. (I'd never heard of it, either.) It stands for Geographic Information Systems, and we learned about aerial photography, computerized mapping, and local GIS applications.

This was definitely the highlight of GIS Day. This guy was very entertaining, and told us all about a program he wrote to keep track of all the city-owned trees for the city forester. (Who knew that could be so interesting?)

After the classes, they served cake adorned with the GIS logo.

Then we went outside to eat lunch. Lucas, of course, wanted to bring a sack lunch from home, as opposed to a sack lunch provided by the school. Otherwise he would have had to eat a lunchmeat sandwich! The horrors.

This enormous tree has several supports for its lateral branches! Have you ever seen anything like that?

This was a happy sight. Although I don't care for milk, I love chocolate milk, especially pre-packaged chocolate milk.

Next, we headed to one of BYU's smaller museums. (This was my group of kids. On the whole, they were very well-behaved.)

Many of the objects in one of their current displays came from Chihuahua and were donated by Shirley Taylor Robinson. My dad grew up in Chihuahua and my maiden name is Taylor, so my curiosity was piqued. Dad? Any relation?

Our last stop was the Earth Science Museum. In my opinion, the best part is being able to look through the large windows into the lab where the paleontologists are working on new finds.


So here's what I learned:

- GIS day exists.
- Aerial photography cameras cost anywhere from $.5 million to over $1 million.
- Film canisters for film aerial photography cameras are about a foot tall and are very heavy.
- Kids really enjoy looking up their homes and/or school on Google maps.
- 33 satellites orbit the earth in order to provide data for GPS systems.
- GPS was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense and is now used worldwide.
- How triangulation works.
- Orem City has a forester.
- He tracks the damage done to city trees by vandalism or natural causes and also their replacement value.
- Fourth grade girls scream a lot.
- Some fourth graders are very anti-BYU.
- Kachinas are dolls made by Pueblo Indians to represent the spirits.
- How archeologists use artifacts to extrapolate information about past civilizations.
- How to tell if a dinosaur was an herbivore or carnivore (its teeth).
- Lucas's teacher is very ambitious and has more energy than I (3 field trips in one!).
- I'm glad I don't have to do that every day.

- Going with this guy was well worth it. He sat with me on the bus and everywhere we went. I think he was really happy to have me along. I love you, buddy.